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00:00Somebody said, every character you've played for almost a decade now, they're a bit traumatized.
00:10Even your Marvel character has PTSD.
00:13Yeah, she has full PTSD, right?
00:15She's not mentally stable.
00:17Maleficent?
00:18She's always Maleficent, so she's maybe the least.
00:21But there was a real...
00:22I would love that.
00:30Medicine cabinet is unlocked.
00:31You can throw it all away.
00:36That is not what the doctor told us we should do.
00:39Was he even a doctor?
00:41He's a specialist, madam.
00:44And what does he specialize in?
00:47Blood.
00:48That is why he took a sample of your blood.
00:50But he said, even before the result of the test, we should get your medication under
00:55control.
00:56It is under control.
00:58It's under my control, and doctors hate that.
01:03I need you to make me an appointment with a hairdresser that doesn't speak.
01:09And when I write my autobiography, I will title it, The Day Ferruccio Saved My Life.
01:15And what day was that, madam?
01:17Every day.
01:19Every single day.
01:20Do I hate you?
01:22I fall into a river, and you always fish me out.
01:28Yes, ma'am.
01:31Walk me a table at the cafe where the waiters know who I am.
01:34I'm in the mood for adulation.
01:41Welcome to the actor's side.
01:42Today, I have wanted her on this for the longest time, and I'm so happy now with Maria, especially,
01:49to be able to talk to Angelina Jolie.
01:51Welcome to the actor's side.
01:53Thank you so much.
01:54Are we doing this?
01:55I have to congratulate you on this.
01:56I was so happy to see you do a role again like this that's complicated and just so rich.
02:06And you do a lot of different things.
02:08But it's been a long time since we've seen you in a role like Maria, I think.
02:13It has.
02:14And I mean, these opportunities don't come often.
02:16They certainly don't come always with such a wonderful director, writer, the whole team
02:25was just so extraordinary and so committed to her.
02:28I feel like it was her, right?
02:30Maria just gathers people that respect her and work hard for her.
02:35And I think we all really, really did want to pay respect.
02:39And what a challenge, too.
02:42I didn't know you could sing.
02:44I didn't either.
02:47You've kept that a secret.
02:51I, yes, I'm, you know, I joke because when you have a director like Pablo and you want
02:56to work so badly on something and someone says, can you sing?
02:59And you think, well, I'll just say I can because I'm an actor and I'll try my best.
03:05And I really did think it was going to be, I knew it was going to be hard, but I thought
03:09it would be a little more, you know, lip syncing and learning and trying to sing.
03:15But I really didn't understand opera and that you really can't fake sing opera or kind of
03:23sing opera.
03:24I wouldn't imagine you could.
03:26Because of how it has to come out of your body.
03:30And yes, so it was a whole different world to learn.
03:38And I think in a funny way, because I'm an actor, there's so much drama in opera that
03:46there was a part of me and Maria was a great actress.
03:50So there was a part of me that got to, it's a very dramatic way of using your voice, right?
03:57It's more than singing.
03:58There's this depth of just emotional output that was very hard to do because you give
04:09so much, but it was also such a wonderful feeling.
04:12And now your voice is blended with Maria Callas.
04:15I was talking to Pablo about that because he said, well, you can't make a Maria Callas
04:20movie without that voice.
04:22But he said, the shooting of it, you had an earpiece and the crew and nobody, they're
04:29just hearing your voice.
04:31Was that scary for you?
04:33I actually almost, when it was starting and I realized that was going to happen, I had
04:36this thought of, I'm going to gift everybody earplugs.
04:39That'll be my crew gift.
04:44My apologies ahead of time.
04:47It was terrifying.
04:48It was terrifying.
04:50And Pablo was so sweet to me though, because I even did all my training.
04:54He wanted me to send videos of me singing and I was so shy.
04:59And so we had this day before filming where we had a piano and me and just like three
05:04people and we're in a room and he said, okay, you got to do it.
05:07You got to sing for me.
05:11And so that was like, I'll never forget that day and just singing and having him like watch
05:19me and listen and do, and then he made me listen.
05:21He played it back and he said, listen to yourself.
05:24You can do this.
05:25You know?
05:26And, but the first day I had my, my sons worked on the film and I, they were helping block
05:30the door.
05:31They were ADs, you know, nobody, I was, please, nobody in the room.
05:34I need a, and I was pet, just petrified and, and then we grew and grew and then he would
05:42bring the audience in and then more crew and because yeah, it was dead silent except for
05:48my very loud singing.
05:52Well opera can be very loud.
05:55Even in the apartment with the door, with the windows wide open, the last song you realize
05:59just people on the street just walking by.
06:02There was no way I could.
06:04Somebody down there's going, that's Angelina Jolie singing.
06:06I'm going, who's that lunatic?
06:10It's pretty amazing.
06:11Did you discover that you're, you're a soprano?
06:13I'm a soprano.
06:14And you didn't know that?
06:16No, because I always thought of my voice as deep.
06:19I always, I was, you know, hired to do these, you know, animated films like Tigress and
06:23my very deep voice and I'm trying to be, um, so I never thought of myself and I'm not to
06:28be too heavy about all this, but I think there's something that happens and I wonder if it's
06:33particular to a woman.
06:34I'm sure it happens to everybody.
06:36We are born with a voice and then for whatever reason, well for many different reasons, sometimes
06:42a trauma may happen and our voice gets smaller or we get locked.
06:47Sometimes, um, we feel that our soft voice, and this is what I think happened to me, my
06:52gentle, soft, higher voice wasn't listened to, like kind of wasn't like I, it was too
07:00vulnerable or it wasn't heard.
07:03And so I think I adapted some kind of voice that would be more, um, that would be stronger
07:11and not as welcoming and more serious.
07:14And I think it's, you know, I'm not a therapist, but I think something happened because I realized
07:19like if my natural voice is softer like this, it's, it's very feminine and very lovely.
07:27And maybe if I was directing my films like this with this voice, maybe it wouldn't be
07:32received the same way, right?
07:35Maybe in life somehow, and maybe in this business, um, there's something that, that
07:41happens and, um, yeah, I don't know.
07:44And then different things of course that make, that hurt you or break your heart or suffering
07:48and pain, right?
07:49Our voices, the character of our voice changes.
07:53That's so interesting the way that happens actually.
07:56And for this movie, you had to run the gamut.
08:00This is at the end of her life.
08:02And I thought that was such an interesting place to place.
08:05If you're going to do this story, I had seen Masterclass, uh, in LA with Zoe Caldwell,
08:10and that's what I knew of Maria Callas.
08:12And that was a very different kind of take.
08:14This was fascinating to me.
08:16And how did you find your way in to relate?
08:20And as an actor, did you have to find a way in to be able to relate to her?
08:24Well, I have this, you know, I always, I always approach a character, um, instead of thinking
08:33I'm going to put this character on, I'm going to wear this character, I'm going to change
08:36and become a character.
08:37I always think it's more about stripping away the parts of me that aren't her.
08:41Yeah.
08:42Right?
08:43So whatever the character is, however broad or crazy, it's like there's something in each
08:46of us that's a little bit like, we all have so many different facets to our personalities.
08:52So with her, it was me without my children, me without my health, me with, you know, this
08:59kind of stripping away and what we, what I would find is the part of me that feels
09:06a lot of pressure, um, works very hard, feels sometimes very lonely.
09:12And so that in that place, I found her.
09:15And then the joy was finding the performance.
09:18We're both performers.
09:19I'd never played a performer before.
09:21Oh, that's interesting.
09:22You never have.
09:23Yeah.
09:24So there was something very interesting in me playing her, Anna Boleyna, me studying
09:28her choices.
09:29You know, we were playing, it was me playing her playing a third character and I would
09:33see her choices as a, as an actor, when she would fall to her knees, how she would emote,
09:41what she would do.
09:42And, and I loved her choices.
09:45I felt like I was having a masterclass of just to, to almost mimic her was to study
09:51the why, the why she did what she did and how she did it.
09:55And, um, and she was a master technician and a friend and performer.
10:00Yeah.
10:01That's, um, I have to tell you something too.
10:04When I saw the movie and I, I kind of saw it by myself in a Netflix screening room before
10:08all the fall festivals and everything.
10:10And I'm watching it and sometimes I'm very conscious of when somebody's doing somebody
10:15else with a song and everything, whatever you did in looping or whatever, I could not
10:20find a single flaw in that.
10:23You know, it really was interesting.
10:25I had just seen Inside Daisy Clover again with Natalie Wood.
10:28They have a whole scene of her looping a song and getting it wrong and things and trying
10:32to match it.
10:33And I was thinking of that watching this.
10:34I said, this is flawless, you know, and it's not easy.
10:39Well, probably that's because I wasn't, I was really singing.
10:45Yeah.
10:46Right.
10:47I think that that's the thing that Pablo said, you have to do, you have to sing along with
10:52her.
10:53And the blend is just, it's just.
10:55And we had these, this extra, our sound design, our direct, like so many people cared so much.
11:01You can really feel that.
11:02And Lachman's gorgeous cinematography.
11:05The whole team.
11:06And the costumes.
11:07Are you an actor that gets that character when you start putting on their clothes?
11:12Yeah, I do.
11:13I think that's why people say to me, oh, you like black or you like to wear coats.
11:17And I said, you know, I think it is that when I'm me, I'm kind of nondescript in a way.
11:23I don't really make very bold daily choices because I'm kind of this blank slate sometimes.
11:29And for my characters, I am so crazy specific because I do get affected by it and I hold
11:37myself differently.
11:39And for Maria, I knew, where we may have in common is we both have been on a red carpet.
11:46We both know the thing, right?
11:48The kind of the outfits with all the glam.
11:51I felt like she does it better than me, but I would learn from her and we could do that.
11:58But the thing I wanted to do first and I did was her glasses.
12:03She really couldn't see, which says a lot, too, about how much she hid and how hard she
12:09worked because she was covering a real disability there.
12:12She really had trouble seeing.
12:16And this robe, we found this robe that was hand crocheted in Italy.
12:20And because she's of Greek heritage and there was something so earthy about it and so also
12:28made by an artisan, right?
12:30So it had this, there was something about that robe and those glasses that made me realize
12:36who she was, who Maria was, not La Callas, right?
12:43And so that was my anchor.
12:45That was my, that robe.
12:46I love that.
12:48You know, on top of all this, you're directing, you have another movie that has been playing
12:53the festivals.
12:54You've been busy lately, but you had taken time off.
12:59And now you're coming back with a vengeance in a way.
13:03I'm wondering, you as a filmmaker, it's very adventurous, you know, in war zones and this
13:09trilogy without blood being the latest and, you know, is that more satisfying to you than
13:15acting these days or do you like doing it both, mixing it up?
13:19I feel so fortunate that I've been allowed to play in different mediums as an artist.
13:24I really, because they all teach me different things about the other and you communicate
13:30in different ways.
13:33I would be terrible at directing a lot of the films I'm in, the types of films I'm in,
13:37you know, it's not the match.
13:42And there's a lot of study on men too in film when I direct like Louis's story that of course
13:47is not a central female character.
13:49So my understanding of men is also something that I'm not able to do as an actress.
13:57So yeah, I don't know.
13:58I suppose they, I did take a lot of time off.
14:04Somebody said to me recently, I don't know if I'm sharing this, but we've known each
14:07other forever so I share things with you.
14:10Somebody said, every character you've played since something's happened in your life, every
14:15character you've played for almost a decade now, they're a bit traumatized, right?
14:22Even your Marvel character has PTSD.
14:25Yeah, she has full PTSD, right?
14:27She's not mentally stable.
14:29Maleficent?
14:30Maleficent was going through a lot of like worried about the child or people judging
14:36she was struggling and in balance, but no, she's always, she's always Maleficent.
14:40So she's maybe the least, but there was a real, I would love that, but, but yeah, so
14:46I was playing a lot of these characters and I think Maria still has, but Maria was maybe
14:49my jump back into, yes, there's this, yes, there's some trauma, yes, there's some pain,
14:53but I'm, but she's fighting back, right?
14:56She's, she's not going to let it, she's going to, she's going to on her term.
15:00So it's a, I'm, I'm very happy to be able to work more.
15:06And again, I did need to take some time and be home and only take roles that were shorter.
15:12And now, and now everybody's older and it's a different time, so.
15:16So it's, so we're going to see a lot more of you.
15:18I hope so.
15:19I hope if I get invited to do some projects, you know, cause that's the funny thing about
15:23being an actor.
15:24You kind of have to be invited.
15:25You have to wait.
15:26Well, with the director, you're saying, and you've worked with great directors.
15:29We were talking before we started shooting here about Clint Eastwood, when you worked
15:33with him in Changeling and at 94, he just made his 42nd film as a director.
15:39I can't wait to see it.
15:40Yeah.
15:41And it's, you know, you would, age is nothing with him.
15:45When you look at that, what was he like to work with for you?
15:48Did you learn a lot?
15:49I learned so much from him and I apply it to my acting, directing and, and he, he has
15:55a way of living.
15:56It's partially why I think we all like him and think he's quite cool.
15:59He's got this, there's an ease about him, there's an intensity and he's an extraordinary
16:03musician.
16:04I mean, the, the soundtrack and the piano playing and the understanding of, you know,
16:09but, but he's, but he also is like, this is not something to stress about.
16:15And this is what we focus on, right?
16:17We're telling a story.
16:18He likes to lock his script and not mess around and have a good crew of people that he respects
16:23everybody, expects them to do their job well and move on.
16:27But he does move very fast as he's known to do.
16:31And, and I was, I, there was some takes I got one shot, but, but I also trusted that
16:39if he said we got it, we got it.
16:41But because of that, you're almost like a boxer in a ring and he's like, he's not there
16:45to hold your hand while you eventually figure out your character or your scene or your work.
16:50He's there to like, to back you, but he expects you to do your job.
16:56I do remember him coming down to Santa Barbara with you when I was hosting a tribute to you
17:02at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.
17:04It was for Mighty Heart.
17:06And, and there he was presenting the award to you, you know, which was so nice to see
17:13how much he admired you.
17:15Oh, I, I love working with him.
17:18I hope, I hope he calls me one day and we've got something to do soon.
17:24At 94, he's still got 10 more movies.
17:26He's got a bunch in him.
17:27He's, he's probably, he's right now thinking of something, I'm sure.
17:30I looked at a list of movies, you know, this is sort of a, you know, you, you started off
17:36doing Gia and Gerald Interrupted and really interesting, heavy characters.
17:41Then you went into an action phase very, very much, you know, with Lara Croft in Gone in
17:46Sixty Seconds, Sky Captain, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Eternals, Maleficent, even Those Who Wish
17:52Me Dead, which I thought was a very good movie.
17:54I really liked that.
17:57What appealed to you about doing all those kind of action driven roles?
18:00Oh, well, I think, again, so lucky.
18:05I think we all need to, to be able to explore different sides of ourselves.
18:11And there's a part of me that is, can be very cerebral and very emotional and get, but,
18:16but also I, I love to be tested physically and out in the world and bold and I, and I,
18:24I love that, those kinds of things.
18:28And, and, and they've come at different times in my life.
18:31I'd like to do, you know, one now, different, you know, I'm older now, but they've certainly
18:36been a bit, it's like a balance.
18:38Sometimes you, you feel I really need to, it's been, it's been very, a real gift at
18:43times in my life when, I mean, even heavy times in my life, when my mom passed, I was
18:48so broken.
18:49I, I really, and I had so many children and I knew I needed to get up and keep moving
18:53and I wanted to just go under the covers.
18:55And I had said no to Wanted.
18:59And then I said yes.
19:00And I mainly said yes, because I thought this is going to help me be strong, stay strong,
19:08keep moving.
19:09Right.
19:10Let out some of my anger, right?
19:13Sometimes it's for the adventure, sometimes it's to, it's to keep yourself strong.
19:19I didn't even mention Salt.
19:21Salt.
19:22I love doing Salt.
19:23And Salt was after I had my twins.
19:24Oh, see, there you go.
19:25So I was sitting at home, breastfeeding twins, feeling like I'd been in a, you know, my nightgown
19:31for a year and, and, and it came at a good time.
19:35So.
19:36Do you just want to do a comedy now?
19:37Or?
19:39Well, I guess, I think, I, I don't know if I think I'm funny enough to do a comedy, but
19:44I think I'm like the, I'm the straight person to the comedy, so I'm the Maleficent in the,
19:50I'd love to play her again.
19:51I'd love to do, do that kind of comedy.
19:53Strange Love's my favorite, one of my favorite films.
19:55I love that kind of comedy.
19:56Oh, that would be, oh yeah, that's an amazing movie right there.
20:00Yeah.
20:01Well, there's much to come with Angelina Jolie and I can't wait to see the other sides of
20:06this actor I'm sitting next to here.
20:09Thank you for joining The Actor's Side.
20:11This is so lovely.